The former Home, Foreign and Justice Secretary answers questions on the issues that have dominated headlines over the past week. Do you agree with him?

The Home Secretary responds to criticism made in a recent article by Donald Macintyre

UNDER THE draft Bill that I published yesterday, everyone in the United Kingdom will have the right of access to information held by bodies across the public sector. This will have a profound and significant impact on the relationship between government and the citizen.

The Home Secretary responds to our criticism of his Green Paper on the family

YOUR headline "decision to free McAliskey made on political grounds" (11 March) was not even supported by the story beneath it, still less by the truth.

Sir: Yet again the Tories are following in Labour's footsteps. Your report "Tories would make bribing MPs a crime" (10 April) comes hot on the heels of our Sunday announcement that Labour will make bribery involving Members of Parliament a criminal offence.

Jack Straw, Labour's home affairs spokesman, explains the curfew plans

Sir: The announcement (18 April) of plans to establish a military- style boot camp for young offenders in Colchester suggests that the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, is more concerned with appearing tough than with taking effective action to cut youth crime.

ANOTHER VIEW

For one so involved in public affairs, Anna Coote displays surprising naivety about that distillation of high ideals and gut instinct that should make up any political party's policy. In her polemical essay in yesterday's Independent against Tony Blair's alleged "flirtation with communitarian ideas", she implies that Mr Blair, and the rest of us, decided to "crack the whip on the community" because "we can do little to control interest rates", and that we have "calculated" that a tough line on "crime and the family" could win more plaudits from the media than appeals for understanding, preventive measures and tolerance.